Feline Infectious Peritonitis

It has been seven years since I lost my 16-year old, Cutie-Q (Question) to feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), so I thought it was a good time to write about FIP once again. Researchers have learned so much about the disease in the last seven years, enough to believe that soon it may not be a death sentence anymore.

It all starts with the feline enteric coronavirus (FECV). Hold your hats folks, I’m going to throw around a bunch of acronyms. A lot of cats have the FECV, maybe 40% or more, and rarely show any symptoms. They may, at first, have a little diarrhea but most otherwise healthy cats/kittens don’t have any other signs. FECV is easily spread between cats through communal grooming and shared litter boxes. Then, something causes the FECV to mutate into the feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV). Thus, the name is a misnomer for FIPV doesn’t seem to be very infectious. It could be stress of some sort, like that found in some multicat households, or an illness, or a change in their lives that causes the mutation.

In any case, FIPV develops quickly into the disease, FIP. However, there are two types of FIP, the wet form and the dry form. Most cats that develop FIPV get the wet, or effusive form. It leads to fluid accumulation in various body cavities such as the abdomen or chest cavity. The dry or non-effusive form involves severe inflammation in one or more organs. Once either form of the disease develops, the cat deteriorates quickly.

The real difficulty lies in the fact that it is hard to diagnose FIP in a living cat. There are no specific tests to run for a diagnosis. Your veterinarian would have to rely on symptoms to diagnose the disease. Likewise, there are no curative treatments for FIP. Some drugs may slow the disease, and some may provide relief from the symptoms but so far there is no cure.

Q, one day, decided to stop eating. That was a shock to me because he’d always had a good appetite and tried to steal food from the other cats. I thought nothing of it the first day but when it continued, I took him to the veterinarian. We ran the usual bloodwork but nothing obvious came of it. Every day he grew more despondent and his belly grew. Strange, considering he wasn’t eating. Soon, way too soon, he was no longer the Q I remembered and loved. I wasn’t admitting to myself, but I knew in my heart, that he had the wet form of FIP and was dying. It all happened in a matter of days and my Cutie-Q was gone.

Ongoing research is promising though. Researchers have discovered a specific antiviral that has worked in controlled studies but that antiviral may also work against Ebola. Because of this it may not be available for animal use. Someday we will have a cure for FIP, and cats will no longer suffer as Question did. Until that day, I pray that the researchers continue to have success with their studies.

We're joining The Cat On My Head for Sunday Selfies though we are only using old photos of Question rather than any of my present cats.

Have you had any cats with FIP? How old were they? Were you able to try any treatments? I’d like to hear what your experience(s) were.